Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Near Ak-Tal

We had quite a relaxing start. With the road for the next couple of days ahead having little aside basic food we took the advantage of Naryn's bazaar. Roman was going to the same endpoint as Nick & myself but by a different path. Nick & I planned to take a relatively minor road across the Fergana ran. We put off starting cycling as we knew it would be going straight into a steady wind, one that would likely stay with us for the next couple of days.

The road out of town followed the gray & brown Naryn river. The valley floor had either sparse tussock grass or wheat fields. Irrigation channels lined with low trees ran parallel to the road. Above the valley on each side were bone dry hills that wouldn't have looked out of place in a Western. Very little traffic passed us in either direction as we struggled against.

There were a few villages along the road, none that we passed through had much going on. This was a road that wasn't really going anywhere. When we dropped into the centre of one of the villages in hope of finding a shop selling watermelons our presence was greeted with dumbstruck surprise. There were no shops.

As the afternoon progressed the headwind grew stronger & stronger. When it came time to find a camping spot we were on a flat straight road with no shelter on either side. We eventually camped on the lea-side of a concrete wall just by the road in order that we'd not have our tents blown away while putting them up.

I cycled 74 km in 6 hours & 1 minute
Total so far 9768 km in 142 days
GPS Coordinates of end point - N 41°23.434, E 75°14.336

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